Gazette Midday: Lac-Mégantic report due Tuesday; Bloc woes continue

Hello and welcome to montrealgazette.com and welcome to Midday. Here’s the rundown on some of the stories we’re following for you today.

The Transportation Safety Board is expected to release its final report on the Lac-Mégantic train derailment on Tuesday. The agency’s investigators arrived in Lac-Mégantic hours after a train with 72 tanker cars hauling crude oil derailed and exploded at the centre of town early in the morning of July 6. During the year-long effort in Lac-Mégantic, the TSB assigned to the file roughly 50 investigators and experts in dangerous goods, engineering, human error, railway transport and mechanics. After the 150 firefighters working on the scene brought the oil fire under control — which took about four days — search and rescue teams, TSB investigators and provincial police began looking through the wreckage for bodies and evidence that could helpdetermine the cause of the accident. During the investigation, TSB employees interviewed witnesses and railway employees, inspected the train’s black boxes and analyzed oil from the Lac-Mégantic rail cars and from wells in North Dakota, where the oil originated.

It’s promising to be a pivotal week for the Bloc Québécois and its new leader, Mario Beaulieu, as rumours swirl about fresh defections by two of the federal party’s three remaining MPs. Following the departure last Tuesday of Jean-François Fortin, the Bloc’s Member of Parliament for the Quebec riding of Haute-Gaspésie—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia, weekend news reports suggested that MP Claude Patry, who represents Jonquière—Alma, will be next. The suspense shouldn’t last much longer as Beaulieu is set to meet with Patry on Monday afternoon in the latter’s riding in the Saguenay. “At this moment, it’s false to say that Mr. Patry is quitting the Bloc,” Patry’s press attaché, Mario Simard, said late Sunday. “Mr. Patry will make his decision at the beginning of the week.” Rumours are also circulating about the future of André Bellavance, the Richmond—Arthabaska MP whom Beaulieu defeated in the two-way party leadership race in June, Simard acknowledged.

Two coroner’s reports in recent months have called on the city to improve services available to the homeless following two shootings by Montreal police within seven months. And on Monday evening, city council will be asked to consider several measures that a city councillor says will give a voice to the city’s most vulnerable. Snowdon councillor Marvin Rotrand will introduce a motion calling on the city to appoint a homelessness advocate, a position similar to what exists in the city of Vancouver. “We have the same debate every year,” Rotrand said. “Citizens want to help solve the problem, but almost every year, despite some successes, the problem is never resolved.” Rotrand said an advocate would give a voice to a group that has very little political clout, and almost no voice. “He or she would be representing a marginalized clientele that doesn’t have any political power or voice, and is often seen more as a nuisance than as citizens,” he said. “The homeless advocate will know the people on the street, and help direct them to the resources to help them get off the street, or to avoid confrontations with police.”

And finally, as senior U.S. politicians were calling for tough sanctions against a Quebec company for illegally supplying military technology to China, Canadian officials concluded the firm would emerge unscathed from the scandal, according to documents obtained by the Citizen. Pratt and Whitney Canada pleaded guilty in 2012 to two counts of violating U.S. export laws after providing U.S. technology that allowed China to develop its first attack helicopter. Its parent firm, the U.S.-based United Technologies Corporation, was required to pay $75 million in penalties for that and for other export violations in which it was involved. The U.S. also imposed a partial freeze on export licences for Pratt and Whitney, an aircraft engine manufacturer based in Longueuil, Que. But Senate Armed Services Committee chairman Carl Levin, a Democrat, and ranking Republican member John McCain demanded more be done, with the Pentagon looking at preventing the company from bidding on future U.S. military contracts.

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